Police investigate Centre County stabbing

Natalya Podnebennaya bought her house with her husband, Vladimir Podnebennyy, in December 2012. They paid $122,000 for the townhouse at 400 Gerald St.

Less than three years later, she is dead.

State College police are investigating a deadly stabbing in College Township after being called to that home around 1 p.m. Monday for a report of a domestic dispute between the 63-year-old husband and 58-year-old wife that ended in a stabbing, according to a press release.

Within hours, Podnebennyy was arraigned by District Judge Leslie Dutchcot on charges of first- and third-degree murder, felony aggravated assault and misdemeanor possession of an instrument of crime. Bail was denied by President Judge Thomas King Kistler.

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According to police, Podnebennyy was taken into custody at the scene, the townhouse parking lot.

“Upon officers’ arrival, a female was found in a vehicle the parking lot with serious injuries. She was transported to Mount Nittany Medical Center, where she was later pronounced dead. The male was located on the scene and taken into custody for questioning,” police said in a release.

The townhouse building and the parking lot were taped off Monday afternoon while police photographed and videoed the residence and searched two vehicles, a bright yellow coupe and a silver four-door. They removed brown paper bags of evidence from the vehicles.

According to the Centre County Women’s Resource Center, Podnebennaya had been seeking help to leave an allegedly abusive relationship with her husband.

“She was an exceptionally strong woman who, after 40 years of marriage, was ready to leave and was doing everything in her power,” said Director Anne Ard. “Violence does escalate and we know it takes a long time sometimes for people to make a break. Each individual needs to decide what that point is.”

“We did safety planning. We worked with her on ways to keep herself safe and that worked for her for a period of time. Ultimately the responsibility is on the person who killed her,” Ard said. “We want people to be safe. We worked with Natalya on that.”

Podnebennaya is the most recent Centre County woman to die after an alleged domestic violence situation escalated.

Alois Kudlach is pending trial in the August slaying of wife, Nuria, at their College Township home. In 2013, Traci Raymond Miscavish was shot and killed at her workplace by estranged husband and retired state trooper Mark Miscavish. In 2007, Jodi Warshaw Barone was similarly killed by her estranged husband at a custody hand-off. Vincent McGee is serving a life sentence in Fayette state prison for the 2001 murder of his wife, Amy Homan McGee.